Healing
by Emma Arthur
Summary: That night, they allow themselves to just sit on the ground in the garden and grieve together. Scott after Jean's death.


_Well, this is my first X-Men fic as well as my first story in English. It is not my first language and this is unbetaed, so please be indulgent... And if anyone wants to correct the language, well, please say it!  
_

_Takes place after X2. It can be read as friendship or slash if you really want...  
_

* * *

_She did make a choice._

The voice still echoes inside his head like Logan was beside him.

_It was you._

Once more, he fights the urge to scream. Why does it matter now that she's gone? That she's not not coming back...

_She's gone. Gone._

Again, it's Logan voice he hears, through their tears, and he is back one the jet, crumbling in his rival's arms. But he isn't his rival anymore. Not now that she's gone.

Yet they keep fighting, like it is the only thing that keep them going through the pain. But even that doesn't.

It's been a week.

Scott has hardly been out of his room, of _their_ room, where he can't sleep but he can remember, he can breathe trough her scent and cry. It feels like he hasn't been doing anything else, and he really hasn't. He goes through the motions, walking along the walls like a ghost, stared at shyly by the children, who pity him because they see _Scott without Jean_ and he doesn't blame them because that's all he is. Half of their couple. Half of himself. Maybe less.

The Professor had to threaten to mentally force him to get him to eat at all, and even what he can manage he mostly doesn't keep down. He's started seriously losing weight, but he couldn't care less. It makes him weaker, which means that when he picks up fights with Logan it takes him longer to get back on his feet, but it's perfect because that pain keeps him from feeling the _other pain_, just for a moment, and it feels good.

After one of their fights almost destroys half of the garden, they take them to the danger room. They even set a time and come back everyday. There is no point in trying to anger each other: the only subject that could get through to them is the one they want to avoid at all cost. So they just fight and Scott comes out a little more bruised everyday and still so empty he hardly feels it. When the one-on-one becomes too dull to keep them going, they team up against the most difficult simulations programmed into the room. It's not about them opposing each other anymore, only trying not to let the pain eating at them swallow them whole. Trying to feel alive again.

Or maybe just about keeping themselves occupied and exhausted enough not to think. Because what's the point in living?

Scott hasn't talked in days. Even to _her_, like he would at the beginning, because now it just hurts too much. He takes long rides on his motorcycle and goes to empty places, where he just stands and shoots wild red beams, blasting everything around. He isn't even afraid of his power anymore, like he's always been, because the hole, the big black abyss inside his head doesn't leave room for fear.

Sometimes he thinks that the Professor and all of the others have been comprehensive, but soon his time will run out and he will have to go back to teaching and watching out for the Brotherhood and leading the team. To go back to living. He can't see that happening. Not without her at his side.

The last time he's felt so lifeless was in Stryker's lab so long ago, blindfolded and so afraid to open his eyes and destroy everything. Before he had met the Professor and come at the school. Before he had met Jean.

He had been so close to going insane. But this time, there isn't going to be a salvation for him in the form of red shades and a red-haired little girl. He wonders how long he will last. Or if he is already gone.

Logan and him start jogging side by side in the morning until they're so out of breath they just can't keep going. Then they fight for hours against illusions of robots. At the back of his mind, Scott can feel the Professor's quiet disagreement every time he is summoned to his office for a mission and refuses it, or when the others have to get them out of the danger room because they've gone too far into the fight and fell unconscious.

Scott still rejects Logan's every attempt at talking, and it feels like reverse, because Logan is not the one who usually talks. Before, he would just growl and it was Scott you could hear tell stories and laugh with the children or with Storm and the Professor and... Jean.

Scott has forgotten how to laugh.

And she's been gone a month and he still doesn't eat and hardly ever sleeps. He looks like he's going to collapse any moment. Everyone is so worried, but he can't find it in himself to care. His throat is raw from throwing up everything they have managed to force him to eat, and he couldn't utter more than a whisper, but, anyway, he hasn't said a word in weeks.

Logan just puts a hand on his shoulder, not urging him to get better like the others, because even if he doesn't hurt as much anymore − he's always healed faster, and she was _Scott_'s girl, − he can understand the pain and the empty feeling.

That night, they allow themselves to just sit on the ground in the garden and grieve together.

Slowly, even Scott heals. Not before passing out in the hallway and earning himself a few forced trips to the infirmary where he really doesn't want to go, because it's _her_ domain. But he starts speaking again, just a hoarse whisper really, and it's _her_ name, but it's still something.

He eats too, though he can't feel the taste of the light vegetables Storm makes for him knowing it will be a while before he can eat normally again. He still doesn't sleep, but at least at night he doesn't cry until his body is dehydrated anymore.

Logan is a quiet presence behind his shoulder, not saying anything but grounding him when he loses it and wants to destroy everything around him. Some days he gives him space and just watches him from a distance, and others he takes him in his strong arms and listens to his heart-wrenching sobs until they quiet down.

It isn't easy for any of them, but it gets better eventually.

One day, Scott wakes up and sees the world, tainted red like her hair through his glasses, and he doesn't feel like crying. He can smile again.


End file.
